If In Nite
by Death-Cry
Summary: Seto Kaiba had always been distant. Seto Kaiba had always kept himself isolated. Seto Kaiba is cruel, cold, and icyhearted. That’s because Seto Kaiba... doesn’t exist...
1. Concerning Pencils

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"_Who knows what could happen_

_Do what you do just keep on laughin'_

_One thing's true, there's always a brand new day_

_I'm gonna live today like it's my last day..."_

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**Title:** If In Nite (1) 

_This chapter is dedicated to all the friends I have had, have, and will have. I hope they'll all be as crazy and as fun as these guys! Much love to you all!_

**Summary:** Seto Kaiba had always been distant. Seto Kaiba had always kept himself isolated. Seto Kaiba is cruel, cold, and icy-hearted. That's because Seto Kaiba... doesn't exist...

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**Chapter One: Concerning Pencils...**

_**In high school, there is an unwritten rule about who picks up a pencil if it should fall on the ground.**_

Yugi Mutou, his tongue between his teeth and his head bowed in concentration, was busily scribbling away at the math final. And if you listened closely, you would be able to hear the gentle hum of the gears in his head spinning their little hearts out. This test was a major chunk of their grade and Yugi had studied for an entire week to get all the formulas down pat. He WAS going to ace this test or die trying.

Two seats behind Yugi sat the infamous Joey Wheeler, the terror of any sane teacher. Completely nonchalant, he quietly doodled a rather good doodle of the Flaming Swordsman heroically battling the flames from a Curse of Dragon on his otherwise empty scantron. His eyes lazily glanced up at the clock, took note of the time, and while the teacher's back was turned, discreetly attempted to sneak a look at Tea Gardner's paper (as she sat to the left of him).

Tea carefully positioned herself between Joey and her precious paper when she felt him staring at her. She had fifteen problems left to go and she'd be damned before letting Wheeler copy all her hard-worked answers.

Joey waited until the teacher bent down to rummage through a file cabinet. Catching Tea's glare, he mouthed, "Friends don't let friends fail!"

The teacher cursed softly, and she opened another file cabinet and fumbled through that one.

Tea took that opportunity to hiss something back at Joey. Something that had nothing to do with friends at all (except for perhaps the letter "f"), and the statement made Joey to blink opened-mouthed. Either the test was stressing out Tea more than Joey had thought or it was that time of month again.

Joey hurriedly closed his mouth and returned his eyes to his test as the teacher slammed the file cabinet shut and gazed back over the class. Joey sighed and decided to just use his old standby. Neatly and profoundly, he bubbled in: A, A, A, A, A, B, A, A, A, A, C, A... and so on and so forth. Five minutes later, he was done. He smiled happily at the resulting "finished" scantron and perfected the rippling muscles of his Flaming swordsman drawing.

Across the room, Tristan Taylor groaned as though dying and hit his head against the desk with a loud and dull, "THUNK!" The teacher looked up from her file cabinet search in alarm, saw that it was "only" Tristan, and resumed her quest for that elusive file. Tristan gave in to the inevitable and unknowingly followed Joey's example: A, A, A, A, A, B, A, A, A, A, C, A...

Seto Kaiba, to Yugi's right, was naturally quite finished. His icy blue eyes flashed as they perused through the pages of a book titled _"Why the World Is Already Yours." _He flipped another page, seemingly absorbed in its contents.

_**If the pencil should fall under the desk of its owner, then all is okay. The owner simply swoops down, picks up the pencil, and continues working.**_

Yugi frowned. The answer to number forty-one seemed a little too extreme. He reread the problem, his lavender eyes grew dark and worried. There were only seven minutes let on the clock and still nine more problems to go. Letting out a breath when he found his error, he flipped his pencil to use the eraser when, oops! The thing slipped out of his fingers and twirled gracefully to meet the floor.

**_However, if the pencil should roll (as it most commonly does on tile flooring) there is the chance that the pencil is out of its owner's "desk territory." In this case, it is in someone else's "desk territory" and thus presents the age-old problem. Ultimately who is obligated to pick up the pencil?_**

Yugi nearly wailed in despair, as his pencil rolled away from him. He still had eight problems left and the clock was ticking ever faster.

**_This is where the hierarchical social status in high school comes into play. If the owner of the pencil is friendly with the person whose "desk territory" the pencil is in then there is no conflict. The desk territory friend-owner would return the pencil in a gesture of goodwill, usually with a smile. Both would return to their work. No harm done._**

Yugi's eyes widened at the sheer horror of it all.

The pencil came to its stop under the desk of none other than the great Seto Kaiba.

**_Unfortunately, in quite a few cases, the owner of the "desk territory" is under no such good terms with the pencil owner, or the pencil owner is of a lower social class than the desk territory owner. In that situation, the desk territory owner would condescendingly lift an eyebrow as the pencil owner would blush and embarrassedly reach over in an uncomfortable position and pick up their own pencil. And sometimes, this can be a very humiliating experience; especially, if you had believed yourself, as the pencil dropper, to be on an equal level as the desk territory owner._**

There was no denying it. Yugi was just a touch too short to reach that far. His only option was to stand up, walk over, and kneel at the feet of Seto Kaiba to retrieve his pencil. He lamented ever finishing his test and was about to push his chair back to stand when the unthinkable happened.

Seto Kaiba reached under his desk and calmly placed it back on Yugi's desk with one capable long arm. He did all this without taking his eyes from his book.

Yugi gaped.

From two desks behind Yugi, Joey, who had witnessed the entire thing, also gaped.

Tea, on Joey's left, attracted by the movement of Joey's jaw dropping, glanced up in time to see Kaiba returning a pencil on Yugi's desk. She, too, gaped.

And from across the room, Tristan, now finished bubbling in the scantron with random letters, looked up in time to see the whole gang gaping at one cool, collected Seto Kaiba.

Tristan shrugged, and after a moment's more hesitation, he gaped as well – for the good of consistency, if you follow my meaning.

Seto, supremely still unaware of the attention, kept reading.

**_But sometimes, just sometimes, the desk territory owner will return the pencil, even if he/she is of a higher status. This could mean one of two things. Either the desk territory owner just wants to more firmly establish their superiority ("Look at me, I'm picking up your pencil because only I have the power to do so and I do what I please, you foolish mortal")..._**

After five more seconds, Yugi tore his wide eyes from Kaiba to hurriedly finish his test.

Two desks behind him, an insect, most likely a fly, cheerfully flew into the open mouth of Joey. He began to hack and cough wildly. The teacher looked up from yet another file cabinet drawer, saw Joey spasm in his seat, assumed it was just another of his efforts for attention, and went back to looking through more files.

On Joey's left, Tea rolled her eyes in what she also believed to be Joey's antics to throw the class into chaos and return to her test. Pushing aside contemplating Seto's motives for later, she bubbled in answer number forty. There were only five minutes left, after all.

Across the room, Tristan noticed his friend's face turning blue, and knocked his chair over in his rush to aid him.

And still, Seto Kaiba, read on.

**_... or it could lead to one of the strongest relationships a person could ever have._**

By the time the bell had rung, almost everyone had forgotten about the whole Kaiba-pencil thing.

The teacher was too busy being furious at Tristan and Joey for disrupting her class and too busy being seriously ticked off that she never really found that folder.

Tristan was too busy explaining to the teacher that Joey _had_ really been choking.

Yugi was too busy defending Joey at Tristan's side.

Joey was too busy spitting out fly wings.

And Tea was too busy arguing with the teacher that thirty minutes was definitely not long enough for fifty problems, so she should be allowed more time next class to complete it. And when she heard the gist of Tristan's/Yugi's argument, she too joined their cause and proudly proclaimed that Joey Wheeler was her friend and that she trusted her friends and that she would always defend her friends.

After that, Tristan, Yugi, the teacher, and Joey, were too busy sweat-dropping.

But there was one who did not forget the gesture of unexpected kindness.

One who was in no way too busy to think about it.

The millennium puzzle glinted.

Yami sat on a lonely stone stairway in his soul room, one hand supporting his chin as he replayed the moment again and again in his head and wondered why it bothered him so.

Subtly blocking the bond between him and Yugi (Yugi's indignation at the wrongful accusation of his friend was uncomfortably loud) so he could think more clearly, he came up with the answer in three minutes time.

The way that Seto Kaiba had moved, the way his arm just curved downward to retrieve the pencil, the way he never looked up... it all seemed so _natural_, like that was the way it should be.

It was as though the very notion of Kaiba taking care of him was completely normal, rational, and simply bloody _fine_.

And for some odd reason, it made Yami feel very warm inside.

Yami scowled at the gray walls surrounding him.

He did not like what it implied, oh no, he did not like the implications at all.

_**Dropping pencils is a very delicate area to tread upon. If you cannot deal with the consequences, it is recommended not to make a habit of doing so. It can start the wildest of complications...**_

Seto Kaiba slipped his book into his briefcase and exited the room with a brilliant whirl of a blue school uniform.

-End-

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_**Author's Notes:**_

_(1) If you haven't already noticed "If In Nite" spells out "Infinite" if you switch the letters around. O, the cleverness of me!_

_I have big plans for this story. Really, really big plans._

_Plans that make my head hurt just thinking about all the future chapters I have to write and how I really should be updating my other stories... (whine-whine)_

_And not to mention that all my teachers are mental and are assigning way too much homework than humanly possible – granted that I'm not exactly human, but still..._

_You're probably not going to see an update for a while._

_I have no sense of commitment. Review, and I might develop one._

_**Disclaimer:** I do not own Yugioh. I do not own song at the top: "Who Knows" by Avril Lavigne._


	2. Fake Chapter

This chapter is also probably not what you're expecting either. This chapter is something to help me make my writer's block go away. And I wrote a little **_real_** snippet in so ffnet won't get on my case about "author-note taking up whole chapter" and whatnot. Psh.

Let me say this again to those who just skip authors' notes and go on to the chapter (and yes, I am guilty of this too – oh, the horror):

**THIS IS NOT A REAL CHAPTER. IF YOU ARE EXPECTING A REAL CHAPTER, THEN YOU OBVIOUSLY DON'T KNOW ME VERY WELL. WITH LUCK, THE REAL CHAPTER WILL BE POSTED IN A FEW DAYS.**

Okay. I'm done now.

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**Outtake Number One: What are friends for?**

Joey waited until the teacher bent down to rummage through a file cabinet. Catching Tea's glare, he mouthed, "Friends don't let friends fail!"

The teacher cursed softly, and she opened another file cabinet and fumbled through that one.

Tea took that opportunity to draw back a tightening fist and SLAM it into Joey's nose. "(A word that starts with the letter "f" in capital letters) OFF, WHEELER!!!"

Clutching at his bloodied nose, Joey fell back into his seat with wide amber eyes, looking more like an abandoned puppy than he'd ever admit.

Hastily, the teacher turned her laugh into a hacking cough.

And from across the room, Tristan sniggered.

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**Outtake Number Two: Kakashi (If you haven't read/seen Naruto, then you oughta skip this one)**

Seto Kaiba, to Yugi's right, was naturally quite finished. His icy blue eyes flashed as they perused through the pages of a book titled _"Come Come Paradise." _He flipped another page, seemingly absorbed in its contents.

Tea, who is on a PMS roll here, noticed the title from a few seats behind Kaiba. Her eyes widened in surprise but she quickly recovered herself. Her nostrils flared and her blue eyes raged to a bright red fury. Her chair crashed into the desk behind her as she stood, her hair lifted by a non-existent wind. Electricity clawed through the air in angry white streaks as she made her way down the aisle to stop abruptly in front of the desk of Seto Kaiba. He, on the other hand, did not give any indication that he acknowledged her existence. In fact, his eyes had never strayed from the book.

"SETO KAIBA, YOU PERV!!! HOW DARE YOU READ THOSE THINGS!!! HOW DARE YOU READ THEM IN CLASS??? HOW DARE YOU READ THEM WITHIN TWO FEET OF INNOCENT LITTLE YUGI???"

Tea fumed, waiting for a reply.

From behind them, Joey whimpered. His nose looked oddly swollen, but this might have been due to the large amounts of shredded scantron paper stuffed up his nostrils to stem the flow of blood.

Seto Kaiba, still immersed in reading his "book," merely pointed one finger at Yugi, or rather, Yami, who was reading a book as well. A book that read, "_Come Come Paradise_" on the cover...

Tea fainted.

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**Outtake Number Three: Pop goes the Weasel!**

Yugi nearly wailed in despair, as his pencil rolled away from him. He still had eight problems left and the clock was ticking ever faster.

Yugi's eyes widened at the sheer horror of it all.

The pencil came to its stop under the desk of none other than the great Seto Kaiba.

There was no denying it. Yugi was just a touch too short to reach that far. His only option was to stand up, walk over, and kneel at the feet of Seto Kaiba to retrieve his pencil. He lamented ever finishing his test and was about to push his chair back to stand when the unthinkable happened.

"_Wingardium Leviosa_!" boldly proclaimed a red-headed boy, lifting a wooden stick into the air.

The pencil lifted, as though by magic, and paused in the air in front of Yugi.

Yugi smiled hesitantly, eyeing the stranger's baggy black robes, and carefully plucked the pencil from midair. "Thank you." He told the red-haired kid. And immediately went back to his test.

Ronald Weasley nodded, produced a tattered shoe from the front of his robes, and tapped the heel of it twice with two fingers.

And he disappeared into fat air.

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**Outtake Number Four: Sensibility**

There was no denying it. Yugi was just a touch too short to reach that far. His only option was to stand up, walk over, and kneel at the feet of Seto Kaiba to retrieve his pencil. He lamented ever finishing his test and was about to push his chair back to stand when the unthinkable happened.

Seto Kaiba reached under his desk and calmly stabbed Yugi in the back with the pencil with one capable long arm. He did all this without taking his eyes from his book.

And as Yugi slid to the floor, his blood pooling around him, he gaped.

Joey, who had seen the entire thing, also gaped.

Tea, catching sight of the blood running down underneath her desk, looked up to see Yugi dying, and gaped as well.

Tristan, from across the room, glanced up in time to see Joey and Tea gaping and Yugi gasping on the ground.

After a moment's hesitation (To gape or not to gape?), Tristan rushed to Yugi's side in time to hear his last words of parting from the world.

"I'm glad someone had the sense to try and comfort me as I die."

Yugi's eyes crossed as he tried to look at his nose. And his eyes stayed in that position as he died.

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**The Math Final (Sample questions):**

1) If Joey can draw one duel monster in thirty seconds and Tristan can draw two duel monsters in forty seconds, how long would it take to draw 399 drawings if the two of them worked together?  
a. As if they could work long enough to complete 399 drawings without getting into SOME sort of trouble  
b.4 hours  
c. 500 hours  
d. None of the above answers are correct

2) If Yugi could defeat Kaiba within fifteen minutes and Kaiba could defeat Joey within ten minutes, how many minutes should it take for Yugi to defeat Joey?  
a. Five minutes  
b. Yugi would have to wait an indeterminable amount of time for Joey to demand a rematch from Kaiba, so all calculation of Yugi's duel with Joey would be irrelevant.  
c. They wouldn't normally duel each other, only when some evil maniac is behind it, plotting to destroy Yugi's resolve, so no duel between them could be counted as legitimate.  
d. None of the above answers are correct

3) If Kaiba and Mokuba fly directly West in their Blue Eyes White Dragon Jet at a speed of three hundred meters per second and Joey was paddling a raft directly East at a speed of one meter per hour, (assuming that both started at the same point) how far apart are they after 45 minutes?  
a. Light-years apart, have you seen how fast that jet can go?  
b. Joey would fall asleep at some point, fall into the ocean, and be devoured by sharks, so all calculation would be irrelevant  
c. 45 minutes apart  
d. None of the above answers are correct

4) If you could rate this fanfiction, you would say it was:  
a. Great, awe-inspiring, the love of my life!  
b. It was okay.  
c. This story was so bad, it made me hate you, life in general, and all things that were once wonderful and good. I can't believe I've wasted so many words for such a worthless fanfiction.  
d. None of the above answers are correct

(If you place your answers in a review, I will give you a score.)

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**AND NOW, THE MOMENT YOU'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR (hopefully): A BIT OF THE SECOND CHAPTER OF "IF IN NITE"!!!**

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"_Cities grow_

_Rivers flow_

_Where you are, I'll never know_

_But_** I'm still here**

_If you were right, and I was wrong_

_Why are you the one who's gone_

_And _**I'm still here**

_The lights go out_

_The bridges burn_

_Once you've gone, you can't return_

**I'm still here**

_Remember how you'd use to say, I'd be the one to runaway_

_But _**I'm still here**

_Still here..."_

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**Title:** If In Nite 

Dedicated to all those who love me and all those for who I loved, love, and will love.

**Summary:** Seto Kaiba had always been distant. Seto Kaiba had always kept himself isolated. Seto Kaiba is cruel, cold, and icy-hearted. That's because Seto Kaiba... doesn't exist...

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_**Author's Note: **_

_The story does follow the summary... eventually. I have to set up some sort of foundation to get to it. This story will turn a little over to the DARK-SIDE/angst-y side, but I'm hoping it'll stay on humor. I like humor._

_To follow my plot, a lot of Seto's "past" will be...fiddled with._

_And if there are any Yami Bakura fangirls reading this, either leave now or prepare to be mortally offended (Sorry Strgazer). Wink._

_For the sake of my laziness, hikari/Ryou will be called Ryou, and Yami/Bakura will be called Bakura._

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**Chapter 2: Relapses**

Ryou missed school the day of the math final.

He had studied all week with Yugi at the Game Shop. He reread his math notes ten times each morning at the breakfast table. In his pocket, he kept a stack of study cards. When he closed his eyes, he could see numbers. While he slept, he murmured formulas to his bedpost. He had been ready for this test.

But he had not been ready for Bakura.

Because of Bakura, Ryou woke up at 3 AM that morning. Because of Bakura, Ryou did not attend school that day. Because of Bakura, Ryou had missed the test. And because of Bakura, Ryou was now failing math.

At exactly 2:58 AM that morning, Bakura had awoken in his soul room from a fitful nightmare as he usually did near that time. He blinked blearily and slowly checked where he was – like he did every morning. He yawned and ran a tongue over his dry lips– like he did every morning. He stretched until the four kinks in his backbone were cracked and settled – like he did every morning. And then he scratched at an itch on his chest – _not_ something he did every morning. For some reason that day, the gods had chosen to place an incurable itch between his collarbone and his ribcage.

At 2:59, when his brain had finally kicked in, his hand was still at his chest. And because his hand was still at his chest, he realized that there was something there that he shouldn't be feeling.

His mind froze. "Gods, no."

At that moment, something in him already knew that his life was screwed from that moment on. Something in him knew that somewhere out there, the gods were laughing at him so hard that they were falling off of their noble thrones. Something in him knew that all the shit in his life up until that moment counted as _nothing_ in comparison. Which was probably why every fiber in his being screamed at him to keep his head up and at all costs NOT TO LOOK DOWN-

He looked down.

In Ryou's bedroom, the greenish glow of his digital alarm clock flickered to show 3:00 AM.

Bakura screamed.

-To be continued-

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**_Author's Note:_**

_I started this at the beginning of the school year. In three days, it'll be Christmas. And I'm still not finished with the second chapter. Consider this my Christmas gift to you._

_If you do not like this gift, return it immediately._

_I still have the receipt._

_I want to finish the second chapter before winter break is over, but I don't want to get anyone's hopes too high. I'm being dragged across the country for a family vacation, and some of my teachers saw fit to load us with homework over the holidays._

_Merry Christmanukwanzantaclaus!_


End file.
